


Reunion

by enchantedsleeper



Category: The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)
Genre: I didn't make the canon sad, I didn't realise how much I needed this OT3 until I wrote it, Multi, POV Emily Craddock, Pre-OT3, also, it was like that when I got here, mention of Alvy Connors, warning for descriptions of a severe cough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 15:52:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17921825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantedsleeper/pseuds/enchantedsleeper
Summary: Thasia wakes up.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> What's up, guys, it's me again! I'm back with a little trick I like to call 'having a long list of fics I intend to work on, then getting an idea out of the blue and writing that instead'. It's a great trick - works every time.
> 
> This fic is officially the fault of the Europe Relisten Party (hey guys o/), who were discussing an Emily/Other Violet/Thasia OT3 during yesterday's stream - after that conversation, I couldn't get the idea out of my head, and 24 hours later, here we are. 
> 
> With apologies also to antonomasia09 for being That Person who tagged the Other Violet Liu in a fic xD
> 
> Heed the tags for this one, guys - there's some description of a severe cough, and it's nothing _graphic_ (no blood involved I promise) but if illness squicks you out, you might want to pass on this one. It's nothing worse than is already featured in the podcast, but still.

Emily Craddock sits against the far wall of the little bedroom in the safehouse, across from the narrow cot on which Thasia lies, and lets everything stop for a few moments as she watches them sleep.

Things have been moving at a breakneck pace since she and Violet broke Thasia out of their imprisonment. In the past 12 hours she has covered every track she can think of, burned every bridge, and done everything she could to ensure a clean getaway. It won’t be enough. As she told Al in the message she recorded for him in the train car, there are very few people with the combined clearance to do what they did.

They took a huge risk getting Thasia out, jeopardised the entire recon operation and months of planning. But if Emily were given a thousand lifetimes in which she needed to choose between Thasia and her own safety, or even the safety of who knew how many others – she would choose Thasia every single time.

She watches Thasia’s side rise and fall with their breathing, half-hidden underneath a thin blanket, and murmurs, “I didn’t think that I would ever see you again.”

She still has no idea why Thasia was being kept locked up by the Regime, or what on earth was in all of those empty tanks. If Thasia hasn’t woken by the time that Al arrives – assuming he even receives her message, but _God_ , she can’t conceive of what might happen if he doesn’t – then hopefully he can explain everything. If all the IGR wanted was a Dwarnian prisoner, then surely there are more politically significant individuals they could have captured.

Why Thasia? What had they gotten themselves into?

Emily starts to cough again, quietly at first, and then harder as the insistent _tickling_ refuses to let up. She should have asked Violet to pick up some cough suppressant with their supplies for the safehouse. It hadn’t been the first thing on her mind, but she’s really starting to feel exhausted from all the coughing, and she can’t afford that – not now. She needs all of her wits about her.

Finally she gets her breathing back under control. There’s a slight ringing in her ears once she’s finished. Because of it, she almost misses a soft voice saying, “Neighbour Craddock?”

No-one calls her that except- Emily looks up so sharply she almost pulls a muscle. Thasia’s eyes are open, and they’re watching her with concern, looking tired but alert.

 _“Thasia,”_ she breathes, and before she knows it she’s up and across the room and kneeling by their bed to kiss them.

After a moment, Thasia kisses her back. She and Thasia had never really named what it was they were to each other, back on Halton Station before the war, but she knows that they both felt the same way. “Romance” didn’t even feel like the right word for what they had – Emily considers Thasia to be her soulmate, in every way possible. Romance is just an incidental part of that. Or so she thought – but she also assumed, back then, that they’d have as long as they could want to explore their connection. Now, she’s not so sure.

She thinks briefly of Violet, who she also cares very deeply about. Her relationship with Violet is very different to the one she had – _has_ – with Thasia, and there’s never really been time to reflect on the finer points of love and relationships during the fleeting moments they snatch together in hidden rooms and safehouses.

Officially, they are nothing more to each other than colleagues, and they’ve put a lot of work into maintaining that front. But none of that matters now, so maybe…

She’s getting ahead of herself.

Emily and Thasia gently disengage, and for a moment neither of them says anything. Emily has so many questions she wants to ask, but she imagines that Thasia has more, so she waits for them to speak first.

“You’re so pale,” is what Thasia opens with, eyes searching Emily’s face. Emily raises her eyebrows.

“After more than ten years since we’ve set eyes on each other, that’s what you’re going with?”

Thasia manages the ghost of a tiny smile, but it’s fleeting. “You are, though.”

“I’ve come down with this awful cough out of nowhere, but it’s – nothing, really,” Emily assures them. “I’m fine. Don’t you at least want to know where you are? How you got here?”

But to her surprise, Thasia shakes their head urgently. “No. I can’t know, and you can’t tell me. They’re listening, always. To everything.”

“‘They?’ Who?” asks Emily, bewildered and unsettled. Maybe Thasia is more sick than she realised.

“The IGR. The Regime.”

Emily shakes her head. “That’s not possible. We’ve scanned every millimetre of this safe house – of course we have, you know we wouldn’t take chances like that. There are no bugs in here.”

“Your technology can’t detect them. They’re inside of me and – it sounds like they’re inside of you as well. Emily, I’m so sorry, but we’ll find a way to fix it, I promise.”

“Sorry? Thasia, what would you need to be sorry for?”

“Because I brought them to the Regime,” Thasia says. “The nanoswarm. That’s how they can hear us.”

Feeling vastly out of her depth, Emily just stares at Thasia. But she’s also thinking about the files that she sent to Al and the numerous references to ‘reprogramming’ and ‘strains’ of a ‘swarm’. Is this what Project Sentry is?

Someone quietly clears their throat, breaking into Emily’s thoughts. She looks up to see Violet standing in the doorway, looking slightly uncertain.

“Hi. I… thought I would come and see how you were,” she says, nodding to Thasia. “But I sense this might be a bad time?”

“It’s fine, Violet; come in,” says Emily. “Thasia, this is Violet Liu. She and I have been working together, inside the Regime. She helped me bring you here.”

“You helped Neighbour- you helped _Agent_ Craddock free me?” Thasia asks, as Violet crosses the small space to sit down next to their bed. “Thank you. I can only imagine… what you risked in doing so.”

“It was a risk, yes,” Violet agrees. “But we’re hoping that it will pay off. Assuming that the Regime has been keeping you a prisoner this entire time, you must have an incredible amount of intelligence on them.”

“More than you can imagine,” Thasia confirms. “Still, if you were working within the Regime, surely you must have jeopardised those positions to free me – to say nothing of your own safety.”

“Yes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we did.”

“You don’t even know me,” Thasia says to Violet. “Agent Craddock and I grew up together, on Halton Station in the Neutral Zone.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But I’m just a Dwarnian that you’ve never met. One of the enemy.”

Emily wants to jump in and protest, but she resists, sensing that the response will mean more coming from Violet. Violet frowns slightly.

“The Intergalactic Regime is my enemy,” she says slowly. “And regardless of what species you are, you did not deserve what they had been doing to you. I didn't need to grow up in the Neutral Zone to know that.

“Besides which, Emil- Agent Craddock trusts you. And you're extremely important to her.”

“Ah, I see,” Thasia says, and Emily thinks a look passes between the two of them, but she can’t quite interpret it. Either way, things seem to be settled.

“There, you-” she begins, but she’s been holding back her cough for too long, and the sentence turns into spluttering and hacking. Thasia looks stricken, and Violet looks concerned.

“I should have picked you up some cough suppressant with the supplies,” she says.

“Add it to – the next run,” Emily manages, trying to sound cheerful and unconcerned. She doesn’t think she quite succeeds.

“It won’t do any good,” Thasia says sadly. Both women turn to look at them.

“What do you mean?” Violet asks sharply.

“Agent Liu, does this house have an independently functioning temperature reg? A thermo... therm...”

“Thermostat? Yes, it does,” says Violet.

“You need to turn it up as high as it will go.”

“Are you cold, Thasia?” Emily croaks.

“Please - I'll explain afterwards. You need to do this now.”

Looking troubled, Violet goes to do as they instruct. Emily reaches out to take Thasia's hand in reassurance.

“I’m sorry, Agent Craddock,” Thasia says again.

“Whatever it is that happened, Thasia, it isn’t your fault,” says Emily. She still doesn’t understand what Thasia is apologising to her for, but she’s sure about this. “And we can fix it. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. As long as you’re safe... I know that everything else will be fine.”

She smiles up at Thasia, but then another wave of coughing overtakes her, worse than before. Oh, she wishes she could stop this godforsaken cough for even a _few moments_ – Thasia’s reply is lost under her hacking coughs, but she feels them squeeze her hand back, and that simple gesture says everything it needs to.

She can’t quite get enough air. She sucks in desperate breaths, her whole frame shuddering with the effort, but black spots are starting to cloud her vision and her throat feels raw. Dimly she hears footsteps, Violet's voice saying something in alarm – and then a wave of dizziness overtakes her and she passes out.

**Author's Note:**

> </3 </3 </3


End file.
